A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,44
Lizzie get back on her feet. You aimed too high and got your wings burned off. You called the tune, and now you have to pay the piper. Deal with it.
He’d been honest when he told her he couldn’t love her. When you loved people, you lost them and it ripped your heart open and bled out all the good stuff. Left nothing but the working parts.
Turned you into the kind of person who could deceive someone you cared about.
He took a deep breath and straightened his cuffs. Braced himself as the plane descended toward a sliver of tarmac shimmering in the afternoon heat. A couple of bumps and they were down.
He forced a smile. “We’re here.”
“Yes.” She didn’t glance at him. She looked nervous, stiff, her fingers fumbling with her seat-belt clasp, eyes darting about.
“We don’t have to go through with this, you know,” he said softly. “You don’t have to be a liar. We can tell them it was a mistake, that we’re not ready to get married or something.”
He held his breath and cursed himself for wanting to marry her anyway. It made no sense, but—
She turned on him, eyes wide. “I’m not a liar. I’m marrying the man of my dreams, remember?” She yanked her bag down from the overhead compartment. “You were the man of my dreams not so very long ago. I’m just playing fast and loose with chronology.”
He held out his hand to take her bag. She ignored it.
“Where are we?” he asked the middle-aged pilot who had emerged from the cabin.
“This is the Houma-Terrebonne airport in Houma, Louisiana.”
I knew it. Con managed a polite nod and glanced at Lizzie.
She stood rigid as they waited for the door to open.
What the hell were they doing here?
He shouldn’t have told her where he was from, but he’d vowed to himself he wouldn’t lie to her anymore. Wouldn’t even bend the truth. He’d turned over a new leaf, and he wasn’t going back.
Whatever you’ve got coming to you, you deserve it.
A deep, ugly voice from the past echoed in his head. Made his fingers curl into fists.
“This way, watch your step!” The cheerful pilot gestured to the stairs. Con indicated that Lizzie should go first, and she did, tossing her hair stiffly behind her shoulders.
Heat and humidity wrapped around him. A black limo idled on the stained tarmac, shining in the sun. A driver got out. “Miss Hathaway?”
“Yes.” Lizzie handed him her bag and climbed into the car with no further preliminaries. Con put his own bag in the trunk.
“Where are we going?” he asked the driver, fear snaking in his gut.
“Some place called the Dumas Plantation.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he wasn’t sure why. Probably near home.
Home. What a funny word for your own personal hell.
He climbed into the car with Lizzie and closed the compartment between them and the driver.
He leaned close enough to feel the heat from her skin, to smell the traces of perfume that clung to it. “This is no surprise to you. You told them to choose Louisiana.”
“I always said you were smart.” She held her chin high, corkscrew curls of hair trailing over her shoulders.
“Why?” To punish him? What had she found out? His gut tightened, and he swallowed hard.
“So you can visit your ‘ancestral home.’ Go back to that fantasy plantation all your pretend ancestors came from.” She turned to him, eyes flashing. “Be the lord of the manor for real.”
He frowned. “You’re kidding.”
She pulled her hair up and twisted it into a knot. “Nope. It’s real. Do you like the idea?”
“Can’t say I do.” He’d rather be any place on earth than here in Louisiana. This place held all the guilt and shame he’d tried so hard to run from. Things he couldn’t even think about without—
He blew out a breath of air and shook his head. Looked at the smooth, slightly flushed skin of her cheek as she stared out the window.
“You said that when you were with me you felt like you really were an aristocrat with an avenue of live oaks, so now you’ll have your live oaks if only for a few days.”
She didn’t turn to look at him, but her voice sounded soft, almost nostalgic. Had she really planned this as a kind of treat? Maybe he’d misjudged her. She’d been so hostile lately he thought she was out to draw blood from him any way she could. Maybe she still had a little bit of heart left that he